4 ms·

Let me expand on that point: "Don't accidentally throw out good apples with the bad ones because you are looking at the wrong metrics." What I mean is: Bad app

Let me expand on that point: "Don't accidentally throw out good apples with the bad ones because you are looking at the wrong metrics." What I mean is: Bad apples are real, but don't ever do time-tracking or fast response testing in an effort to identify them. There are some excellent apples who will get your 8h-day deliverables done in 2-4h. Don't ever establish any system to find them. If you have a problem with them, you are the problem. Kick people based on repeatedly violating the deadline for deliverables.

codegeek 5y ago
Work is not all about deadlines. It also requires discipline to be present for meetings (no matter how much you hate them), be available to solve problems (sometimes immediately), collaborate with other team members and many other things. It is called "Team work" for a reason. Good developers can get away with a lot of things for sure especially if they produce code but as someone who runs teams, it is not enough. I would rather work with someone who cares about how their work impacts the overall team vs just them working in silo and happy enough coz they hit their deadlines.
- zerocount 5y ago
  Yes, it is about the deadlines. That's what keeps me getting a paycheck, which is the reason I'm working. What you describe as teamwork is just every day development activity. There is no discipline to attending a meeting when the meeting is mandatory. I can always spot someone who 'runs teams' by the way they prioritize the company and piss on the workers in the name of the customer and 'teamwork.' This is why you can't trust a manager. You can't seperate their nose from the company's ass.
  - codegeek 5y ago
    "piss on the workers". I made no such remark anywhere in my comment. You can prioritize the company and still take care of the employees. It is not a zero sum game but hating on managers is obviously a cool thing to do.
  - marcinzm 5y ago
    I've never been at a company where deadlines are what keeps people getting a paycheck. Overall output is what kept the paychecks flowing. Deadlines are an artificial construct in most cases and in most of the remaining they're just a way to synchronize work. If a feature comes out today or in a week or a month has little difference in the vast majority of cases. If you get 1 or 5 or 10 features out this month has a difference.
marcinzm 5y ago
Deadlines are also the wrong metric to measure people with unless you're a contracting/consulting shop.
- codegeek 5y ago
  Seriously. This talk of "deadlines are everything" is such bullshit. In my company, I am looking for people who care about their work, first and foremost. They enjoy what they do. Sometimes, deadlines are needed, sure. But it is mostly about growing as an individual and learning how to work in collaboration. What good are deadlines if you churn out crap output ?
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
The thing is: Some of the worst remote workers are actually the best at appearing always online. They’ll go out of their way to remind everyone that they were “working” at 8PM or on a weekend because they need to compensate for the lack of actual work done. One of the worst remote work offenders I ever dealt with had a routine of doing things every Saturday morning that would ping the team: Lots of Slack “@channel” questions. Lots of name tags in Slack to generate pings. Some e-mails with unnecessarily huge recipient lists. If someone had only measured time online or number of Slack messages sent, this guy would have been at the top of the list. But it was all a show. It was all low-effort, high-volume content designed to give the impression of working hard, and it only came in short bursts. Anyone paying attention knew he wasn’t delivering much but he was generating huge fanfare over tiny things he did. So yes, focusing too much on perceived hours worked or activity in Slack or e-mail is one of the worst ways to do performance management. > Kick people based on repeatedly violating the deadline for deliverables. This is the other game they play: Come sprint planning time, they’ll invest huge effort in exaggerating how long a task will take. Then they’ll go to great lengths to find ways to be “blocked and waiting on so and so” during the week. Eventually they’ll push their deadline back so far that hitting it is trivially easy. Which is why it’s important to have managers who can spot these exaggerations and investigate the actual code and deliverables when they arrive. Engineers are good at spotting when someone has been lying about effort, but managers without engineering backgrounds can often (but not always) be fooled by charismatic remote workers.
- zerocount 5y ago
  - code_biologist 5y ago
    Are you and I reading the same comment? PragmaticPulp talked about measuring people by their true deliverables — not on whether they act like cogs or "give it their all".
  - dang 5y ago
    Whoa, you can't attack other users like this on HN. We ban accounts that do this sort of thing. You've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines in other places too. I don't want to ban you, so if you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
zerocount 5y ago
This actually makes sense. No need for the big survellance net.
andrei_says_ 5y ago
As someone who is involved in both engineering and management - in my experience 8h days do not exist. Are there just isn’t an environment allowing for eight hours of deep work without interruptions, emails, meetings, chats etc. And even if eight hours of deep work were possible, the cognitive load the programming tends to lead to exhaustion within 4 to 6 hours max. I don’t expect more from myself or others.

codegeek 5y ago

Work is not all about deadlines. It also requires discipline to be present for meetings (no matter how much you hate them), be available to solve problems (sometimes immediately), collaborate with other team members and many other things. It is called "Team work" for a reason. Good developers can get away with a lot of things for sure especially if they produce code but as someone who runs teams, it is not enough. I would rather work with someone who cares about how their work impacts the overall team vs just them working in silo and happy enough coz they hit their deadlines.

zerocount 5y ago
Yes, it is about the deadlines. That's what keeps me getting a paycheck, which is the reason I'm working. What you describe as teamwork is just every day development activity. There is no discipline to attending a meeting when the meeting is mandatory. I can always spot someone who 'runs teams' by the way they prioritize the company and piss on the workers in the name of the customer and 'teamwork.' This is why you can't trust a manager. You can't seperate their nose from the company's ass.
- codegeek 5y ago
  "piss on the workers". I made no such remark anywhere in my comment. You can prioritize the company and still take care of the employees. It is not a zero sum game but hating on managers is obviously a cool thing to do.
- marcinzm 5y ago
  I've never been at a company where deadlines are what keeps people getting a paycheck. Overall output is what kept the paychecks flowing. Deadlines are an artificial construct in most cases and in most of the remaining they're just a way to synchronize work. If a feature comes out today or in a week or a month has little difference in the vast majority of cases. If you get 1 or 5 or 10 features out this month has a difference.

marcinzm 5y ago

Deadlines are also the wrong metric to measure people with unless you're a contracting/consulting shop.

codegeek 5y ago
Seriously. This talk of "deadlines are everything" is such bullshit. In my company, I am looking for people who care about their work, first and foremost. They enjoy what they do. Sometimes, deadlines are needed, sure. But it is mostly about growing as an individual and learning how to work in collaboration. What good are deadlines if you churn out crap output ?

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

The thing is: Some of the worst remote workers are actually the best at appearing always online. They’ll go out of their way to remind everyone that they were “working” at 8PM or on a weekend because they need to compensate for the lack of actual work done. One of the worst remote work offenders I ever dealt with had a routine of doing things every Saturday morning that would ping the team: Lots of Slack “@channel” questions. Lots of name tags in Slack to generate pings. Some e-mails with unnecessarily huge recipient lists. If someone had only measured time online or number of Slack messages sent, this guy would have been at the top of the list. But it was all a show. It was all low-effort, high-volume content designed to give the impression of working hard, and it only came in short bursts. Anyone paying attention knew he wasn’t delivering much but he was generating huge fanfare over tiny things he did. So yes, focusing too much on perceived hours worked or activity in Slack or e-mail is one of the worst ways to do performance management. > Kick people based on repeatedly violating the deadline for deliverables. This is the other game they play: Come sprint planning time, they’ll invest huge effort in exaggerating how long a task will take. Then they’ll go to great lengths to find ways to be “blocked and waiting on so and so” during the week. Eventually they’ll push their deadline back so far that hitting it is trivially easy. Which is why it’s important to have managers who can spot these exaggerations and investigate the actual code and deliverables when they arrive. Engineers are good at spotting when someone has been lying about effort, but managers without engineering backgrounds can often (but not always) be fooled by charismatic remote workers.

zerocount 5y ago
- code_biologist 5y ago
  Are you and I reading the same comment? PragmaticPulp talked about measuring people by their true deliverables — not on whether they act like cogs or "give it their all".
- dang 5y ago
  Whoa, you can't attack other users like this on HN. We ban accounts that do this sort of thing. You've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines in other places too. I don't want to ban you, so if you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

zerocount 5y ago

This actually makes sense. No need for the big survellance net.

andrei_says_ 5y ago

As someone who is involved in both engineering and management - in my experience 8h days do not exist. Are there just isn’t an environment allowing for eight hours of deep work without interruptions, emails, meetings, chats etc. And even if eight hours of deep work were possible, the cognitive load the programming tends to lead to exhaustion within 4 to 6 hours max. I don’t expect more from myself or others.